{"id":40773,"date":"2020-01-29T16:18:19","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T16:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/prerogative-of-mercy-president-kagame-pardons-18\/"},"modified":"2020-02-01T18:12:12","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T18:12:12","slug":"prerogative-of-mercy-president-kagame-pardons-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/prerogative-of-mercy-president-kagame-pardons-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Prerogative of Mercy: President Kagame pardons 18 convicted youths"},"content":{"rendered":"

A communication published on January 28th, 2020, announcing decisions of an extraordinary cabinet meeting that was held at Village Urugwiro the same day read: <\/p>\n

\u201cHis Excellency the President of the Republic of Rwanda informed the Cabinet meeting of a pardon granted to 18 youth who were serving sentences in Nyagatare prison that displayed good conduct and scored highly in the national examinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On January 29th, 2020, Busingye Johnston, the Minister of Justice posted on his Twitter account that President Kagame granted a presidential pardon for the fourth time in a row since 2017. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes. His Excellency Paul Kagame did it, again, the fourth time in a row, since 2017. For good conduct and good academic performance, the juvenile convicts have earned themselves a Presidential Pardon and, with it, a brand-new lease of life. They will walk out ASAP. Thank you, Your Excellency.\u201d<\/p>\n

13 of the youths who were pardoned sat for Primary School National Examinations and 8 of them passed with distinction, 5 with satisfaction. For those who sat for Ordinary level, 5 passed with distinction and one with satisfaction. One is still waiting for advanced level results.<\/p>\n

In 2019, President Kagame granted pardon to 16 other convicted youths including 3 girls who were serving their sentences in Nyagatare Prison. They were convicted for different crimes including rape, minor defilement, drug abuse and terrorism acts.<\/p>\n

Article 109 of the Constitution of Rwanda states: \u201cThe President of the Republic has the authority to exercise the prerogative of mercy in accordance with the procedures provided for by law and after consultation with the Supreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

The President of the Republic has the authority to exercise the prerogative of mercy in accordance with the procedures provided for by law and after consultation with the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

Convicts dossiers are submitted for re-evaluation to prosecution and then handed to the Ministry of Justice who is required to submit a decision within 3 months and send a report to the President of the Republic who makes the final decision.<\/p>\n

The President of the Republic can grant mercy or parole without following any written procedure or by assigning the parolee responsibilities to fulfill. A parolee who doesn’t follow the rules risks going back into custody. <\/p>\n

\"Prerogative<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, January 28th, 2020, President Paul Kagame exercised his prerogative of mercy and granted pardon to 18 convicted youths in Nyagatare Prison on account of good conduct and excellent academic performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-40773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40773"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=40773"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=40773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}